Parathion said:

(A) is actually a sentence. As written, it's a complete thought, and it actually has a meaning.

(B) is nonsense. You have to imagine extra words in order to actually make any sense of it. "Exhaust Gauntlets of Power and [gain the ability to repeatedly] pay ~~ to Recover 1 fatigue."

The FAQ statement is clear and unambiguous because the only way to make it mean anything other than (A) is to imagine there are extra words that were not actually written.

Parathion said:

Using that sentence you quote: paying ~~ is conditional upon exhausting the gauntlets. (The word "and")

So to recover the 1 fatigue - one must perform both steps. One may only exhaust the gauntlets once per turn (unless there is something - feat/skill - that will allow exhausting an item more than once per turn)... So the paying of ~~ is therefore tied to your ability to exhaust said gauntlets... if you can only exhaust the gauntlets once you are missing a part of the "and" to repeat the exchange to fatigue.

How is "<SS>: Recover 1 fatigue" different compared to "pay <SS> to recover 1 fatigue" ?

"<SS>: do X" is a defined game term which allows one to pay <SS> multiple times in order to do X multiple times. "pay <ss> to do X" is an English statement which means that if you pay <SS> you get to do X. It does not say one way or the other whether you can do it multiple times or not.

How can you state that "Exhaust Gauntlets of Power and pay ~~ to Recover 1 fatigue." must always mean

"(Exhaust Gauntlets of Power and pay ~~) to Recover 1 fatigue." and never "Exhaust Gauntlets of Power and (pay ~~ to Recover 1 fatigue)."

Because it's English. That's how English works. Ask any English professor. The word "and" between two phrases conjoins those phrases into a single entity. It's why it's called a conjunction. If you separate them you are ignoring the word "and" which changes the meaning of the sentence.

Are you still thinking the FAQ statement is clear and unambiguous without the brackets?!

Yes. Most definitely. I agree that it could have been made clearer to those without linguistics backgrounds, and given the international nature of Descent that could only be a good thing, however; there's no doubt about what it says.

Edit: @ James, you would earn a total of $624 only, since I would definitely insist on getting that one dollar from you

If touching your ear for $1.25 was a stacking effect, then how would you write your example ability to earn the big bucks?

I would avoid game terminology altogether and simply say "give Parathion one dollar to be able to touch your ear any number of times and earn $1.25 for each touch." If I had to use game terminology I'd say "give Parathion one dollar to gain the ability 'touch your ear: earn $1.25'"

"and" is a conditional word only? Whoa, I always thought it could be used in an itemisation as well. I even thought it was its primary function.

"and" has several meanings in the language. It only has one in that sentence. I understand that you are not going to agree to that, and I don't have to play at your table, so I'll move on now.

If you really want to understand the ruling and aren't just putting a personal spin on it to gain a desired effect, to take it to an English teacher and ask them what it means, without putting anyone's interpretations into the question itself (so as to avoid accidental bias).

Parathion said:

As a coordinating conjunction it connects words, phrases or clauses together. "Coordinating conjunctions, also called coordinators, are conjunctions that join two or more items of equal syntactic importance." (Don't hate cause I quoted Wikipedia lol)

Therefore - the "and" makes the exhausting of the gauntlets of equal importance to spending the surges... and to receive the fatigue dependent upon the fulfillment of the 2 clauses.

mahkra said:

Oops. I made a mistake here. Even imaging those extra words isn't enough; you also have to change a word for it to make sense:

"Exhaust Gauntlets of Power to [gain the ability to repeatedly] pay ~~ to Recover 1 fatigue."

SoylentGreen said:

The problem is that if you read the "and" that way, it's not a complete sentence any more.

(Do A) and (do B) to (achieve C). You have a compound action (Do A and do B) and a result (achieve C). If instead you lump B and C together, you have a compound action [ (Do A) and (do B to achieve C) ].... and then you're just left hanging. The thought is never completed.

mahkra said:

"Exhaust Gauntlets of Power and pay ~~ to Recover 1 fatigue."

How? I don't really read it that way I guess... You can't just lump B and C together as the action. You need both A + B to get the resulting action of C.

They are conditional upon each other to get C - being fatigue.

SoylentGreen said:

Exactly. I'm saying you can't just lump B & C together, because you wouldn't have a sentence any more.

mahkra said:

Oh. So we were both really arguing the same thing. (I got confused somewhere in the quoting of other threads and in your responses.)

SoylentGreen said:

My bad. That quote in my post is a bit of a mess; I meant to be agreeing with you.

(I guess that's what comes from trying to actually get work done at work while I'm responding in the forums.)

Parathion said:

Easy: English Grammar.

This is similar to the Knight skill, but less complicated, so more people can intuit the correct solution (and, like the Knight skill, it didn't occur to me that someone would parse it incorrectly until someone did). But the rule is the same: try substituting each of the child phrases in place of the combined phrase created by the "and", and see if what you get is still valid.

The first option gives "Exhaust gauntlets of power to recover 1 fatigue" and "Pay <SS> to recover 1 faitgue," both of which are coherent effects.

The second option gives "Pay <SS> to recover 1 fatigue," and "Exhaust gauntlets of power," the second of which is only a fragment, not a complete ability. If the card just said "All of your attacks gain the ability: Exhaust Gauntlets of Power," we'd all be scratching our heads and wondering what they meant. Therefore, it's not a valid parsing.

But even if it was somehow valid, your idea that you can substitute any multiple of one of several effects in an itemized list is also completely crazy and unprecedented unless the "and" means that those are two completely separate abilities that you get, rather than two parts of a single ability. If it's a single ability, both parts of the "and" are linked and you can't ever do one without doing the other, so your conclusion would still be invalid.

Now, if "exhaust gauntlets of power" was a valid ability all by itself, then "separate abilities" would be a completely valid interpretation, but that parsing would also mean that you didn't even need to exhaust the gauntlets once in order to convert as many surges as you like into fatigue - if you can activate the second ability twice after using the first only once, then you can also activate the second ability twice (or any other number) after using the first ability zero times. Which would mean the "nerfed" version would need to be equivalent to or better than the original version.

It would also mean that the preamble should use the plural "abilities" instead of "ability," so the printed text would still be in error.

So with that parsing explained, we can easily see why this doesn't work:

Parathion said:

By that line of reasoning...let's split up the surges!

"<S>: Recover 1 fatigue" means "<S>: Recover 1 fatigue OR <SS>: Recover 2 fatigue OR <SSS> Recover 3 fatigue..."

Therefore

"<S><S>: Recover 1 fatigue" means "<S> (<S>: Recover 1 fatigue OR <S><S>: Recover 2 fatigue OR <S><S><S>: Recover 3 fatigue...)"

So you don't need to spend 4 surges to recover 2 fatigue; you only need to spend 3!

You are multiplying the effect after multiplying only part of the cost. If you seriously think you can do that in all cases, the game disintegrates pretty rapidly.